Less than a week after Liza Minnelli collapsed while onstage, her ex David Gest hit the stage himself last night looking like his former wife.
From the Daily Mail: “David was starring as the ‘Tranny Granny’ in the Twisted Carol panto, but his short black wig and dramatic eye make-up made the similarity to his famous former lover rather striking.
“Tranny Granny”? Wow! All we can say, is: David, we miss you and want you back in Memphis.
Read the Daily Mail story here.
Talk about your odd couples: Frog likes his next-door neighbor Toad, even though he’s a neurotic wart-covered mess of complaints. And Toad likes Frog every bit as much, even though he’s preternaturally cheerful (even in the morning) and also covered in unsightly warts. The two old friends rake one another’s leaves and like to chat pleasantly over hot tea and homemade cookies. And no matter how much they fight, they always make up. Story-wise, that’s about all there is to A Year With Frog and Toad, the Tony-nominated musical based on Arnold Lobel’s beloved series of children’s books. There’s no big adventure. In fact, there’s very little plot at all. There’s just Frog, Toad, and all their woodland friends. And that’s enough.
The most frustrating aspect of most contemporary adaptations of children’s stories is the adaptor’s need to insert some level of irony, presumably aimed at the adults in the crowd. In recent years, film adaptations of Dr. Seuss classics like How the Grinch Stole Christmas and The Cat in the Hat have been pumped up with scatological humor and edgy sexual innuendo. Frog and Toad proves how unnecessary all of that is. Being merely charming, completely un-edgy, and rather smart, it manages to delight children and adults alike.
A Year With Frog and Toad plays out like a series of variety-show skits with songs and comedy routines based on the passing seasons. If the plot and dialogue are simplistic, the lyrics are delightfully clever and sophisticated in a way that is reminiscent of dry-wit lyricists from a bygone era or perhaps a recent episode of The Backyardigans.
“Three things you cannot dispute,” we’re told in the song “Get a Load of Toad.” “Bamboo comes from a bamboo shoot, rutabaga comes from a rutabaga root, and Toad looks funny in a bathing suit.” And he does.
More than anything else, A Year With Frog and Toad proves that children — even very young ones — can be entertained without technical wizardry. At a recent Saturday matinee, the youngsters sat mesmerized, and during intermission many tried to imitate the anthropomorphic movements of the actors playing animals.
Brian C. Gray and Kevin Todd Murphy are wonderful as Frog and Toad, respectively, but both are nearly eclipsed by an extraordinary chorus led by Amber Snyder and Corey Cochran in a variety of roles.
Did I say that there were no ironic winks and nudges for adults? Because there is one. Overwhelmed by his newfound success as a mailman, Snail (Cochran) strips down to a gold-lame-accented mail carrier’s uniform while singing, “I’m coming out — of my shell.” Although the gay allusions soared over the kiddies’ heads, the joke was out of place. That’s not to say it was anything short of fun or fabulous.
Chicago-based director/choreographer Scott Ferguson earned an excellent reputation in Memphis directing camp classics like The Rocky Horror Show and The Mystery of Irma Vep, but his more recent production of the Mark Twain musical Big River was something of a mess. Oddly enough, it’s Ferguson’s eye for kitsch that makes the completely sincere A Year With Frog and Toad such a winner. Who else might have imagined birds flying south for the winter as mid-20th-century flight attendants or transformed a pair of moles into fur-wearing Russian spies.
Laura E. Jordan’s costumes are exemplary, while Tim McMath’s set faithfully renders the look and feel of the original children’s books.
If there is serious complaint to be registered regarding Frog and Toad, it’s with the music direction. And even there, Renee Kemper, who pulls double duty as both musical director and keyboardist, does an excellent job. The problem stems from the fact that she’s the show’s only musician.
It’s a tragedy that when regional theaters stage smaller-scale musicals like A Year with Frog and Toad, they are often faced with the choice of using either a bare-bones band or prerecorded music. It’s unrealistic to say so, but neither choice is really acceptable.
Through December 23rd at Circuit
Playhouse
Forget Santa. Christmas just wouldn’t be Christmas without a visit from that jolly old Sister Myotis, the big-haired (and big just about everything else) alter ego of comedian, actor, and writer Steve Swift (pictured at center, with Jenny Madden and Todd Berry). Each year Project: Motion, Memphis’ premier modern dance company, and the progressive thespians of Voices of the South team up for Pre-sent/Pres-ent, an evening of original dance and theater featuring some of Memphis’ most creative personalities. But Swift’s outlandish character always steals the show.
Myotis, as the story goes, grew her house of worship — the Good Tidings Apostolic Holiness Christian Fellowship of Saints — from its humble beginnings in Memphis into an 80,000-member megachurch complete with waterslides, laser-tag, bowling alleys, the Red Sea Wave Pool, and (best of all) the Vice President Dick Cheney Shooting Range.
Swift’s character talks about the Bible like Paula Deen talks about butter, but his sometimes-scathing social commentary is wrapped in a crispy, deep-fried blanket of sincere affection. For more adventurous theatergoers tired of the same old holiday platitudes, Myotis’ visit to TheatreWorks for Pre-sent/Pres-ent has become the season’s must-see event.
So, in the words of the good sister: “May the love of the Lord swell up inside you until you near about bust.”
“Pre-sent/Pres-ent” runs December 13th-16th. Tickets are $20 for adults, $10 for students and seniors. Tickets can be ordered online at voicesofthesouth.org.
Some people (and for reasons that boggle the mind) can’t get enough of A Tuna Christmas. Take, for example, the young lady who sat behind me at Playhouse on the Square Sunday night. She said all the punchlines moments before the actors could deliver them, then repeated particularly funny lines, laughed until she snorted, and laughed again at her own snorting. She wasn’t the only person having a good time, though she was certainly the most obnoxious.
A Tuna Christmas is a small-town and smaller-stakes soap opera built on the unfortunately accurate premise that an audience will always laugh at chubby men in dresses and pee their pants at the mere mention of a Frito-pie.
Yes indeed, it is a treat to watch gifted character actors Andrew Moore and Michael Gravois transform before our very eyes into all the oddball inhabitants of Texas’ third-smallest town. True enough, the actors have an infectious good time showing off their mighty arsenal of silly, whistling voices and strange, spit-laden dialects. But in spite of their populist appeal, all three of the Tuna plays (Greater Tuna, A Tuna Christmas, and the Independence Day thigh-slapper Red, White, and Tuna) are snarlingly superior and steadfastly middle-brow. What these protracted skits about big-hearted half-wits from hicktown lack in mere humanity, they more than make up for in sight gags, gross sentiment, and casual racism. (Midget Mexicans, anyone?)
The Tuna plays are all about making fun of culturally and economically challenged peckerwoods with big butts, bad hair, and tacky outfits. And they’re also about getting misty when these poor inbred fashion disasters find sloppy love over a bottle of whiskey and a Floyd Cramer tune.
Oh well. After the box-office disappointment of Jerry Springer — the Opera (a far more daring take on the trailer-park set), Playhouse deserves a few full houses. It’s been a blissful five years since POTS’ last visit to Tuna, the dysfunctional trailer-park community where the locals tune into radio station WKKK (hyuck!) for up-to-the-minute reports on the annual holiday lawn-display contest. (Yeehaw!) Playhouse could drag out this crowd-pleasing garbage every year but doesn’t. Astonishing! Praiseworthy, even.
Through January 6th
While Playhouse on the Square is busy dishing out the old and familiar, Hattiloo Theatre is attempting box-office suicide by presenting a monstrously depressing original script during the one time of the year when most of the city’s theaters can actually fill seats and stock their treasure chests.
Written and directed by Hattiloo’s artistic director Ekundayo Bandele, Forget Me Not Christmas is Sophocles’ Antigone reimagined and set in the poorest place imaginable. It tells the story of recently freed slaves grieving over a monstrous tragedy, shaking off their ghosts, and sacrificing their identity to please the gods of their former captors.
Bandele is an exceptional writer, though sometimes he can go on like a politician in love with the sound of his own voice. At this point in his promising play’s development, every line hangs heavy with dark matters and thundering self-importance.
Never let it be said that Bandele doesn’t have a gift for developing epic metaphors. In the center of his set (and at the heart of his play), there is a massive wood-burning furnace that saved an entire community one particularly nasty winter. Sixteen members of that community were subsequently burned in the furnace when the original owner took his revenge for the theft, and the survivors are forced to decide if the man who stole the furnace was a Christ figure or a common thief who brought a curse down on his people.
Bandele’s direction lacks the crispness his wordy play needs to move it along at a tolerable clip, and the actors often seem uncertain of their lines and blocking. Still, its flaws and overeager nods to playwrights like August Wilson and Suzan Lori Parks aside, there is something to it all.
Repetitive and seemingly unfinished, Forget Me Not Christmas is a holiday downer that needs someone other than the playwright to edit and stage it. That said, there is no reason to believe that Bandele’s writing won’t astound us all some day.
Through December 23rd
According the UK’s Guardian, David Gest is launching a stage musical about himself called David Gest is Nuts – My Life As A Musical.
Music will include more than 20 Top Five hits performed by original artists including Gloria Gaynor and Coolio. The show will open at London’s Hammersmith Apollo in February, then will tour.
Friend Michael Jackson was quoted as follows: “David can’t sing and can’t dance. It will be amazing to see just how nuts he gets on stage!”
If you’re headed down to Hotlanta in the next month, you might want to check out Memphis Belle Cybill Shepherd in the one-woman comedy, Curvy Widow, at the Alliance Theatre.
From the Alliance Theatre’s website: “Golden Globe winner Cybill Shepherd stars in the World Premiere of Bobby Goldman’s autobiographical play Curvy Widow, an intimate and wildly funny one-woman comedy about love, sex, and misadventures in online dating.
“When a strong-willed, successful, seasoned woman finds herself widowed, she assumes new love will just be a point and click away. But dating in the 21st century proves to offer one fresh surprise after another in this exclusive and empowering night of laughter. Wading through the dating pool, she finally finds that in order to be happy, all she needs to be is herself.”
Hmmm… Well, hopefully, the show itself will be better than the promotional copy. For Ticket information and show times, go here.
Celebrate the bohemian life with RENT at the Orpheum Theatre on November
23-24, with a special chance to win one of five Viva la Vie Boheme gift baskets when you purchase your RENT tickets, compliments of the Orpheum and The Memphis Flyer.
RENT is Broadway’s smash hit musical, now in its 10th Season of Love!
Set in the East Village of New York City, RENT is about being young and learning to survive in NYC. It’s about falling in love, finding your voice and living for today. Winner of the Tony Award® for Best Musical and the Pulitzer Prize, RENT has made a lasting mark on Broadway with songs that rock and a story that really resonates. Whether it’s your 1st time or your 100th time, the time is now for RENT!
Buy your tickets with our exclusive Memphis Flyer promotion code
and be entered to win gift baskets that each include:
official RENT merchandise, an Orpheum Theatre mug, a Memphis Flyer t-shirt,
a gift certificate to the Flying Saucer, passes to the Stax Museum of Soul
Music, a CD of local musicians from Goner Records, a coupon from
Memphis Pizza Café, plus a coupon from Bluff City Coffee.
This offer starts Wednesday, November 7 and ends Wednesday, November 21.
To take advantage of this offer, please follow these instructions:
1) Follow this link and click “Find Tickets”
2) Then select the number of tickets and price level next to the
Promotions and Special Offers box
3) Next, enter your password: BOHEME
4) Lastly, click “Look for Tickets”
Former Memphian Katori Hall’s play, “Hoodoo Love,” opened at the Cherry Lane Theatre in New York this week. The New York Times weighed in with a review:
“Ms. Hall casts a sprawling net around her tale, hauling in a fair number of cliches, some rather arbitrary plot points and some strong moments in her right-minded but ambling opus.
“The play, which was workshopped in Cherry Lane’s Mentor Project under the eye of the MacArthur Fellowship-winning playwright Lynn Nottage, is really about a woman involved with two men: a blues singer and ladies’ man named Ace of Spades, and her huckster no-account brother, Jib. Rather than being honest with Ace, she turns to the hoodoo of her elderly neighbor, Candy Lady, to bind him to her.”
Read the entire review at the NYTimes website.
Nothing says Halloween like a tall, fanged man in a long black cape. And costumed revelers who want to extend their spook-day celebrations into November may wish to check out the closing weekend of Hattiloo Theatre’s solid production of Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
Playwright Steven Dietz made a name for himself with the absurdist AIDS play Lonely Planet and earned critical plaudits for God’s Country, a hard-hitting look at hate crimes in America. His take on gothic literature’s most famous bloodsucker is far less serious than previous endeavors, mixing humor and horror in equal measures. Dietz’s Dracula has less to to do with blood and bats than it does with seduction and a community’s response to the sudden, scientifically inexplicable darkness that overtakes it.
Landry Kamdem Kamdem, a native of Cameroon and postdoctoral research scientist at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, plays the wicked count with smoldering intensity. His lyrical accent may betray the actor’s non-Transylvanian roots, but it adds plenty to the play’s exotic and occasionally erotic mystique.
Veteran actor Tony Anderson, known for powerful performances in shows like Master Harold… and the Boys and My Children! My Africa!, takes on the role of doctor-turned-vampire-hunter Abraham Van Helsing. Reginald Brown, an assistant professor of theater at the University of Memphis and co-founder of Newark, New Jersey’s Ensemble Theater Company, directs.
“Dracula” at Hattiloo Theatre through Sunday, November 4th. Tickets at the door are $18 for adults, $15 for students and seniors.
Paul Taylor’s story is incredible. From the beginning, the celebrated dancer and choreographer defied conventional wisdom. Trained as an athlete and visual artist, he never studied dance until he got to college. And in this arena, where only the dainty survive, this large, powerfully built man excelled, capturing the full attention of modern-dance pioneer Martha Graham, who became his instructor and friend.
Taylor, who started his first dance company in 1954, was inspired by modern artists like Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg who celebrated common objects and gestures in their paintings and sculpture. His earliest danceworks celebrated ordinary movements such as looking at a wristwatch or waiting for a bus, but over time, he developed an aggressive and athletic yet painterly style, referencing everything from the most minimal modernism to the most benign aspects of the Broadway musical. His longevity and limitless versatility have led numerous observers to speculate — with few harsh detractors — that Taylor is currently the world’s greatest living choreographer.
On Thursday, October 18th, at 7 p.m., Germantown Performing Arts Centre will screen Dancemaker, Matthew Diamond’s Oscar-nominated documentary about Taylor, featuring footage of his early work with Graham’s company. The latest incarnation of Taylor’s own company will make its move at GPAC on Saturday, October 20th.
Paul Taylor Dance Company, Saturday, October 20th, 8 p.m. Germantown Performing Arts Centre. Tickets start at $30. Admission to Thursday’s film is free.